Google Classroom

Ok, so I am totally late to the party. But I can cope with that. I have been toying with trying Google Classroom for a while now. We have a VLE at school where we have to put our homework assignments, so it seemed kind of redundant for us. But then, this week I changed my mind. I wanted to find out what it was all about.

No guesses about the outcome of course. I loved it.

Why? Well, I loved that my students had to turn in their work. One of the major problems I was having with allowing my year 8s to turn in their work on Google Drive was that I never got it. They would spell my name wrong, or share it with the wrong email address. The email address I use for Google Drive isn't one I can actually get access to, so I never knew. With Classroom they have to turn in their work, and I can hassle the ones who are late in doing so. I can give them a grade that they have to look at, and leave them a comment with suggested targets for next time.

It's Tuesday. I've already used it twice. Already one pupil has asked if he can use it next week. I'd set his class a presentation task on the theme of sacrifice. I usually wouldn't see their presentations, but this time I can have a flick through before they present them and grade them before the rest of the class sees them.

Just in case this doesn't convince you. Here's a handy Youtube Clip with lush music.

I have just implemented my first action from the Google in edcuation conference from last week. As I mentioned in my earlier post I wanted to start trying to use videos in my classroom more. We were shown some very simple ones at the conference where we were taken through some quiz questions about Harry Potter. At the end of them there was an anotation with true or false which took you to a new video. What a fantastic idea for creative revision I thought.

Tonight I have made my own Channel. I have started very simply with some videos about the Fall. I plan to use them in my revision lessons next week. Each one is linked to other ones so they should hopefully take you on a little journey.

I cannot imagine what my class will think of them, they are pretty dorky. But hopefully we will have a little bit of fun together.

Here is one of my first videos.